Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks Stall Again – Ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine fell flat once again on Monday, with bombs continuing to rain down on the capital city of Kyiv early this week.
The latest round of negotiations was held via video conference and ended without any breakthrough. An aide to the Ukrainian president described the ending of the discussions as a “technical pause,” and announced plans to continue discussions on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on NATO countries to deliver yet more military equipment to the besieged country and is now expected to make a direct plea to the United States Congress on Wednesday for greater help.
Peace Talks So Far
The first round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine took place on February 28, four days after the invasion officially began. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the time that the primary goal of the first round of talks was to achieve a ceasefire agreement between the two sides and begin a full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
The talks, however, failed. They were picked up on March 3, when Ukraine and Russia first agreed to establish humanitarian corridors that would allow Ukrainian citizens to evacuate the country, but those corridors would prove a sticking point in future negotiations as both sides could not agree on proposed routes.
The third round of talks took place on March 7, when reports suggested that some movement had been achieved, but still not enough for the invasion to cease. Russia laid out four demands that must be met before a permanent ceasefire would be established.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine must make changes to its constitution to prevent the country from joining NATO and other Western blocs and an immediate end to all military activity. Peskov also said that Ukraine must recognize Crimea – the Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in 2014 – as Russian, and recognize the independents of the eastern Ukrainian republic of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Peace talks entered a fourth-round on March 10, with efforts made to establish a ceasefire in Mariupol to allow civilians to leave. An agreement was not made until Monday, March 14, when a convoy of 160 vehicles successfully left the city.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and report on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
